TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Actor John Cena has apologized to fans in China after he called Taiwan a country in a promotional interview for his upcoming film and became the latest celebrity to face the fury of Chinese nationalists.
In a short video posted Tuesday, Cena did not refer to Taiwan or go into much detail about the incident, which occurred when he was doing a promotion for “Fast & Furious 9” with Taiwanese media.
“In one interview, I made a mistake,” he said in heavily accented Mandarin Chinese.
It was unclear if Cena’s apology worked, as many comments on Chinese social media in response to his video were negative.
Likewise, Cena was also facing scorn back in the United States, where Sen. Tom Cotton called the apology “pathetic."
